India ahead of others in new MBA hires: GMAT 2012 survey

NEW DELHI: A report by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) on hiring trends and employment prospects for graduate business and management students in India has shown that while the employer demand for new MBA hires in 2012 in India is almost the same as last year at 88 per cent, it exceeds both the global average (79 per cent companies planning to hire) and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) regional average which stood at 80 per cent.

Michelle Sparkman-Renz, GMAC's director of research communications, says: "India's status as a growing economy may be a driver of demand." The findings were derived from responses from 29 employers in India who participated in the GMAC 2012 Corporate Recruiters Survey, 334 graduates at 11 business schools in India who participated in the GMAC 2012 Global Management Education Graduate Survey, and 18,310 GMAT examinees residing in India, and 17,638 score reports sent to schools in India by all examinees worldwide in 2011.

Indian residents represent the third largest group of GMAT examinees in the B-school pipeline, after the US and China. The most popular and effective job search methods for class of 2012 graduates in India were school career services and on-campus resources. The survey also revealed that global employer demand for new MBA hires is up in 2012. More companies worldwide plan to hire recent MBA graduates in 2012. The figure stands at 79 per cent, compared to 72 per cent of companies that hired MBA graduates in 2011.

On-campus visits with graduating students topped the list of recruitment methods Indian employers use when seeking new graduate business hires: 72 per cent of Indian companies expected to recruit candidates on-campus in 2012. Employee referrals (69 per cent) were the second most popular recruitment method Indian companies employ, followed by hiring of former and current interns (48 per cent), use of online job search tools (48 per cent), and company websites (45 per cent).

99 per cent of the class of 2012 Indian B-school graduates targeted companies in Asia for their job search. 12 per cent searched for jobs in the US, 8 per cent in Western Europe, and 6 per cent in Middle East.

Although median MBA starting salaries in the APAC region are lower than those in the US, nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of APAC employers plan to raise their MBA hire starting salaries above the rate of inflation.